After Nils made me cry he tried to clarify with an extreme example: Syncaine, who supposedly has not played since vanilla and yet still comments on WoW. Pretty stupid, right? Well...

That could be me. It's been a few months since I last played. Of course that was still during Cataclysm, so I'm still in the most recent expansion and havhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife a general idea of what is going on. But how long does that last? Next raid tier? I know there will be a major shift then, and with the next, and the next. What about if there is a change on par with the LFD tool? That would again alter the community and game, to the point that any not playing at the time would be, in my opinion, unqualified to talk about it.

But let's be realistic, if tomorrow Blizzard announced some game-changing change to the game, would I hang up my hat and announce that I am no longer able to talk about WoW? I doubt it. I'd shift to other aspects. And then gradually move back to where I was, talking about community and grouping, but with no direct experience. If I truly cared, I'd resub when that happened, to witness the change. But I don't feel like handing over money for a game I stopped enjoying just to be able to write more authoritatively about why I continue to not enjoy it (or maybe it would suddenly be great again!)

Will I stop blogging about WoW when the next expansion comes? Somehow I doubt it. New expansions mean no one knows anything anyway, so that's a free pass to be ignorant and stupid. Maybe when it releases I'd stop. Or I could get the expansion and try it out. I was certain I would when I'd stopped playing. "Next expansion" is a steadily increasingly recurring theme. I would stop PvPing after the gear gap became too obnoxious to overcome and figured, next expansion I'd give it another shot. Of course I'd then be out of the habit and not get into it quickly, and find myself right back at the bottom again, so there's always next expansion. For the game overall, I figured next expansion (the one after Cataclysm) I'd jump in again, see if things were better. Now I'm not so sure. From my perspective things have been, overall, on a steady downhill trend (individual aspects were improved). I don't expect that to change, not when there are millions of untapped customers and far fewer disgruntled veterans. This wasn't supposed to be a complaining post, I just wanted to explain why I'd probably remain ignorant of WoW after the next expansion.

I don't think it makes much sense to keep bashing WoW for years after, despite change after change making old knowledge increasingly obsolete. Yet, I can understand somewhat and sympathize. It's easy to talk about WoW. Everyone knows it. The power of a universal point of reference is hard to avoid.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifSo my answer is, probably no.

Hey, don't start to sub to WoW now, just so that you can blog about it. Even bad press is better than none.I already feel guilty of supporting WoW this way.

-NilsStrange as it sounds, this is true. After hearing about how Darkfall was so terrible, I decided to wander over to try their trial. They wanted a dollar for it. Not much, but too much. So instead I wrote a post suggesting that this was actually a great deal.

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comments:

The reason bad press is better than none is that it proves that someone cares. That's also why people in general are quite interested in what other people really don't like. These people are unlikely to try to cheat you.It's why I love rage-quit posts. In their own way, they are very honest.

As long as WoW remains as dominant as it is, I guess I will resub every now and then for a month. The reason is that you can hardly blog about MMORPGs and ignore the (still by far) biggest one. I mean, you can. But it doesn't make much sense.Also, the downfall of WoW will be interesting. You can learn something here.

It's unfortunate that I support Blizzard this way. Not only with my money, but more importantly by blogging.

Nils: once you've fallen off the WoW bandwagon, the downfall of the game becomes not just interesting, but an occasion for righteous joy. Experience the inexorable consequences of your misdeeds, doomed game designers!

I think its very tempting to continue talking smack about WoW after you unsubscribe. To be honest, I don't know many people who leave WoW without some sort of sour emotion towards it, even if it is just tired. So it's natural to vent some of that off. The problem with that is you are among many, many friends if you simply complain. Nils is right to say to be careful about those emotions.

I don't think it's so bad to talk about WoW no matter how long you've been away. Most people who read up on MMO's are saturated with information about it. You have to make an effort to avoid it, and even then, its the elephant in the room.

It comes down to do you play and have relevant info for the game? Or do I like reading your blog cause it saves me from boredom for at least 20mins each day. Just like I’m not going to watch a dudes videos (or read his "How to books") on how to parachute if the fucker has never sky dived. I won’t take a blog serious if they aren’t actually current. I’ve played WoW since launch, and I still play, and yes it’s still fun. I raid, I wipe, and I kill and regardless of what ppl say nothings gonna change that (for me or the many other millions.) If a person is fickle/stupid enough to quit playing WoW because some dude who hasn’t played the game in 3 years said so…. He didn’t wanna play and was looking for an ANY excuse and the game is better with him dead and gone without the possibility of resurrection. That being said ill still read blogs even if the ppl who write them bash/compliment the game, regardless of whether they have any justification for doing so. Especially if they get their jolly’s pissing off fan boys/girls by posting useless whine feasts.... as stated above its about the end result: Is it usefull, or am I bored at work and need something to read besides Facebook or BBC?.... the answer is Yes…… so keep writing your craziness because I need something to surf.

Hey I talk about WoW all the time and I havent played official servers since vanilla either.

Thing is I am familiar with WoW mechanics even if I havent seen "raid x" or new mechanics "y". And so are other people . What is the point of talking about obscure MMO "xyz" where one would have to prefaces everything with foray into basics as no one knows that "xyz" even exists

But by the time Nils wrote the post about why he did quit WoW again at level thirty-something he already decided to not log in anymore at that point. Which made that a post about WoW by someone who did not play WoW at that time. :-)

I really hoped he would suffer through TBC and Northrend because I found his posts interesting as I didn't level a new alt since Cataclysm. (Actually I tried to level a worgen but got bored at level 4 but that was probably me and not the game.)

@Nils: I try to avoid Godwinning, and hopefully this won't go horribly awry, but, Nazis. On any given day, someone is compared to a Nazi. Why? Because we all know, Nazis are bad, so comparing to them is a useful tool. It's a frame of reference. The vast majority of the world associates Nazi with bad, excluding the un-American parts which refuse to speak English or something close enough. My point is that we can talk about something a lot without helping it.

@Straw Fellow: I wonder why that is, the prevalence of negative emotions. Maybe it's that remaining subscribed is a passive process, so one must actively reject the game to stop playing.

@Hyperian: An excellent point, pointing out that my material is utterly useless anyway, so I have nothing to fear. In fact, I have gradually changed my post time to better fit the early-morning bored at work reading schedule. Or most recently (6am vs. 7am), in a vain attempt to get comments to respond to before I go to work.

P.S. To be clear, I do not mean useless in a negative way. My favorite blogs are of the useless sort.

@Max: It's a bit of a self-perpetuating problem. Don't talk about game X because no one has heard about it, but then no one has heard about it.

@Kring: If you got bored with a low level worgen, that was definitely you. It is a proven scientific fact that the worgen starting area is amazingly awesome. This makes for a rough transition to the less awesome nelf areas.

@Issy: I'm not behind the curve, I'm ahead of it!

@Anonymous: Have you tried inviting her to parties without telling him?

I still read blogs and MMOC even though I have not played in two months. I do not know what that makes me. My rational is this. Well, my time is so incredibly limited and sporatic that I am having just as much entertainment doing the above than it would take to go to my PC, load it up, start up blizzard, maybe download a patch, login, play, logout. In that time I can read a few blogs or what not. Its the same reason I do not play Rift any more. My time is so sporatic, i have maybe 30 minutes a day to play. Not nearly enough to even get a quest done. But i can read quite a bit in 30 min.

Oh the other thing, alot of my friends are in the same boat. Not nearly enough time to do what we want to do in game. We used to be able to do heroics in 15-30 min. That's great. Now we can't. So a very major part of the game is dead. My BFF now plays PVP even though he is a keyboard turner. He does not have anything else in the game to do in his 1 hour a night max. But in that time he can do a few arena or a BG. Not a heroic though. So there is something to be said for catering to people with extremely limited time. THis is why casual gaming is insanely popular and profitable, you can play farmville in 15 minutes a day.